R&D contractor raises $6 million

LONDON – Presto Engineering Inc., a company which has pioneered contract R&D services for semiconductor companies, has said it has received $6 million in funding to support. The funding round was led by CM-CIC Capital Prive and included existing investor Masseran Gestion.

Operating from locations in San Jose, Calif., Grenoble and Caen in France, Presto delivers product engineering services and hardware to IDMs and fabless vendors, from first-silicon characterization to product release and testing. Presto is currently engaged in a multi-year collaboration with CEA-Leti to develop test and analysis capabilities for 3-D/TSV devices.

Like the fabless business model that has changed the nature of chipmaking, Presto's "labless" model enables chip companies to outsource critical functions that require high rates of capital investment, substantial facility space, and specialized personnel.

"We see this as a strong endorsement of our labless strategy and will assist us as we expand our services model to the major semiconductor regions around the globe," stated Michel Villemain, founder and CEO of Presto Engineering, in a statement.

This is very important for the fabless semi conductor vendors to actually outsource the critical jobs to firms like presto. They can use the expertise personal without actually a high investment. The semiconductor testing always needs expensive equipments to actually make any signal or noise measurements for the characterization.

If Presto succeeds in becoming the industry "go to" lab, they will need to ensure that they successfully segregate information from different clients whose emerging technologies they are testing. Probably UL testing labs will provide some elements of a model - but Presto will probably be involved even earlier in the development process when the data is even more sensitive.

This is an extremely interesting model. Enabling companies to outsource more test services and decrease their individual capital investment in test equipment and having easier access to qualified test and measurement personnel can be a big factor in improving the bottom line. At the same time, this means that some personnel will need to shift their job within their company or change companies if they want to continue doing the same functions.